BLACKSBURG, Va., April 30, 2007 - Virginia Tech's Center for
Digital Discourse
and Culture (CDDC) is pleased to announce the launch of the April
16 Archive
(www.april16archive.org). This new online archive assists artists,
humanists,
social scientists, and all other scholars who seek, today and in
the future, to
develop a better understanding of the violent events of April 16,
2007 at
Virginia Tech. It is also available to the general public of the
Commonwealth
of Virginia, the United States of America, and the world at large
as we come to
terms with a local, national, and global event that will have
ramifications for
years to come. This archive works actively to deploy electronic
media for the
collection, interpretation, preservation, and display of stories
and digital
objects related to the tragedy of April 16, 2007 and its many
effects as text,
image, and sound. Developed in cooperation with George Mason
University's
Center for History and New Media (CHNM), this project is receiving
technical,
curatorial and administrative support from Virginia Tech students,
faculty, and
staff.

The archive will preserve a diverse record of the events
surrounding April 16,
2007 by collecting first-hand observations, photographic images, sound
recordings, media reports, personal writings, official statements,
individual
blog postings, and any other documents that can be stored as
digital files. In
addition to local reactions, the archive welcomes responses from
across the
globe in any language. Through this archive, we aim to leave a
positive legacy
for the larger community and contribute to a collective process of
healing,
especially as those affected by this tragedy tell their stories in
their own
words. The larger trend exemplified by this project is the "digital
memory
bank." Memory banks are being used to preserve the richness of the
present as
it transitions to the past, thereby ensuring that the collected
records can be
both readily accessible and carefully preserved for future access.

The April 16 Archive welcomes contributions from the Virginia Tech
community, as
well as from anyone around the world who wants to share words of
support or
reflection following the events of April 16, 2007. The attacks
happened in
Blacksburg, Virginia, but they were experienced around the world
through mass
media and community ties. The accounts of that day from any site
across the
globe are, therefore, very important to the April 16 Archive as it
documents
the full impact of this tragic event. For more information, visit
www.april16archive.org or contact admin {AT} april16archive.org. For media
inquiries, contact Brent Jesiek, Manager of the CDDC, at (540)
231-7614 or
cddc {AT} vt.edu.

Established in 1998, Virginia Tech's Center for Digital Discourse
and Culture is
one of the world's first university based digital points-of-
publication for new
forms of scholarly communication, academic research, and cultural
analysis.
Virginia Tech's College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences (CLAHS)
as well as
the Institute of Distance and Distributed Learning (IDDL) actively
support the
Center for Digital Discourse and Culture. The CDDC is also working
with
Virginia Tech's newly established Institute for Society, Culture,
and the
Environment (ISCE) to develop new scholarly initiatives, such as
the April 16
Archive, tied into the practices of rhetoric, representation and
the public
humanities.